Jacqui Smith 3

The government is rather keen on the idea of creating a massive database that will store all your emails, texts, calls and internet use. It's an idea that's understandably raised a few eyebrows, even outside of privacy and consumer-based pressure groups. Even I'm a little alarmed about this one, despite generally not being that fussed about privacy issues.
In protest, some enterprising sorts have created a campaign called "CC all your emails to Jacqui Smith day". On one day - June 15th - they want you to copy all your email correspondence in to [email protected], the idea being that they get so overwhelmed by a mountain of correspondence, so much of it inane and useless, that they realize it's a rubbish idea.
Of course, it could backfire. On the FAQ section of the site under 'is this legal?', the organizers claim: "This is unclear. You personally are certainly at no risk from prosecution. But it is possible that if the volume of emails crashes the servers, it could be seen as a Denial of Service attack - although there is no precedent for such an attack coming from multiple people sending a small number of emails."
There's also a Facebook group, though as the Register points out, they're fairly keen on keeping all your private data themselves, so you might just want to plump for the email option. Sign up on the website, right here.
"CC all your emails to Jacqui Smith day"

Remember that time you saw that bloke legging it up the street followed by a team of hooded pursuers? I bet you've always wondered whether he was late for a meeting, just larking about or was in fact being chased into submission by a gang of teenage assailants wielding sticks with nails in them. Well, soon you'll be able to find out.

Jonathan Weinberg writes...
OK, so let's do a straw poll. What do you think would stop a sex offender abusing children? I know this is not a comfortable topic but it is an extremely important one in tech and Internet terms. Stiffer sentences maybe? The threat of castration? A life term in jail? Perhaps even death by lethal injection?
We've all had those "If I were Home Secretary" moments and this is one of them because the plans today released by the UK's Home Secretary Jacqui Smith seem the worst kind of limp proposals for such a serious matter...